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One of the nation's oldest churches is considering selling a copy of the first book ever published in British North America. Members of the Old South Church in Boston are scheduled to vote on Sunday whether to sell one of their two copies of the Bay Psalm Book, published in 1640, along with a collection of Colonial-era silver. They say the sale could help pay for repairs and assure the financial future of the church, established in 1669. A Sotheby's executive calls the psalm book "the Gutenberg Bible of America," and says it could fetch $10 million to $20 million at auction. Just 11 copies remain.

Raphael work on auction block

One of the most significant drawings by Italian master Raphael in private hands is up for auction in London. Head of an Apostle is expected to fetch between $16 million and $24 million at Sotheby's on Wednesday. The drawing was created in preparation for Raphael's Biblical painting The Transfiguration, which hangs in the Vatican Museum in Rome. Sotheby's Old Master expert Cristiana Romalli said it revealed Raphael, who died in 1520, "as very possibly the greatest master of drawing who has ever lived."

Thieves swipe gold from boat

Masked men in jackets with the word "police" boarded a fishing boat Friday in Curacao and stole 70 gold bars worth an estimated $11.5 million, officials on the southern Caribbean island said. Police spokesman Reggie Huggins declined to say who owned the approximately 476 pounds of gold but he said it was a legal shipment that was being trans-shipped through Curacao.

Times wires

By the numbers

$5 million

The amount Japan is providing to the United States to help with collection and disposal of marine debris from its 2011 tsunami disaster.